Sensitive Bore, Markedly More
by heliopaths
Summary: The unfortunate circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time leads a woman to find herself surrounded by three of Gotham's most notorious criminals. Her life from then on is never quite the same.
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** So, once again in my many years of lurking in fandom I'm attempting to write and hopefully complete a multi-chapter fanfic. It hasn't been beta-ed and strongly features OC. However I've found that the Nolanverse Batman fandom tends to be more accepting than others of original characters. I've been wanting to try my hand with original, so here it goes. Feedback, thoughts, comments would all be appreciated!

_**sensitive bore, markedly more: chapter one**_  
_**batman begins/dark knight,** female ocs, bruce wayne, 1,757_  
The unfortunate circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time leads a woman to find herself surrounded by three of Gotham's most notorious criminals. Her life from then on is never quite the same.

* * *

A periodic groaning punctuated the discussion in the conference room. It had started off as a small whistle and then increased in volume as time wore on. The handful of others present in the room did their best to ignore the source of the sound as they had become accustomed to its presence often when the man joined them. Most regarded this with contempt and indignation, however, there was one with an amused smile.

Neither of the two guests of the meeting was that individual. In fact it grated one on her nerves so much that she could scarcely pay attention to the subject of the meeting. The frustration led her to wonder what would happen in an alternate universe if a bolder version of her stood up and walked out right then. Of course in this universe that would be a foolish move and put her into the bad graces of her superior sitting to her right.

Her superior, initially upset herself, set aside her irritation near the beginning of the meeting and set off to complete the task of convincing the board members - a specific one in particular - why their branch of Wayne Enterprises required more funding this year than the last.

She heard some soft shuffling made by her assistant beside her, but she paid it little mind at the time until moments later the room was filled with a sharp _clack!_ as metal stapler met table.

The snoring immediately stopped and Bruce Wayne jumped up in his seat looking around at the other men and women in the room with frazzled surprise. His gaze settled on an olive-skinned woman babbling apologies to the room.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. It-it - _slipped_!"

"That's perfectly all right, Ms. Khairi." Lucius Fox smiled kindly at the woman while she composed herself. He turned back to the woman next to Sana. "Please, go on, Ms. Osburn."

Wendy Osburn steeled herself and blanked out the surprised and annoyed gleam from the expression she had pointed at Sana Khairi. Wendy returned her attention to the older gentleman and Bruce Wayne now that he was awake. He might not know what was going on, but it would only be polite to include him as well since being abruptly awakened.

The quiet assistant took on an incredibly impassive expression that clashed with her frantic apology earlier. The only indication that her thoughts were on something other than the subject of the meeting was a pink-redness quickly coloring her face.

The meeting ended forty-five minutes later. Mr. Wayne looked about ready to nod off again and Mr. Fox, the board members, and Wendy completed outlining a draft for the budget. The renewed activity of men and women rising from their seats and collecting their belongings woke Bruce up once again. He glanced at the pair of women about to leave and rose up quickly to meet them. Wendy reacted to his approach by swearing underneath her breath. Sana hid a smile and took care to look engrossed with the contents of a day planner.

Sana was not entirely sure what she was looking at nor what she was pretending to be reading. She was too drawn to the conversation between Wendy and Bruce Wayne. There was no mistaking the flirtatious tone of the conversation that Wayne was trying to set. What impressed Sana the most was how with a smile firmly in place Wendy artfully side-stepped his many invitations and still kept the conversation light-hearted and friendly.

Flirtation was something Sana herself had little experience and skill in, and she found it a curious and entertaining process to observe.

_Watch how the male of the species flashes his blindingly white teeth and ruffles his plumage towards the direction of his desired mate. However, this female is difficult to impress and she slips away to hid behind the bushes. Her disinterest only encourages the male's efforts to increase._

"Ms. Khairi," Wendy's even voice pulled Sana suddenly out of her thoughts to see both Wayne and Wendy watching her. "Are we ready to go?"

_This cannot keep happening,_ she told herself as she shook away the fanciful thoughts from her mind.

To her recollection this was the first time Wayne had ever looked at her directly at this proximity. She found herself wishing for some wall to block her from his eyesight. Sana blushed and nodded. "Yes."

The women both said their farewells to the man and left the room towards the direction of the elevator. Sana watched Wendy from the corner of her eye as Wendy pulled out her cell phone and sent off a message to her driver. Sana tried to get some sort of clue of Wendy's mood, but her expression remained carefully blank.

Once they stepped into an elevator heading down to the lobby of Wayne Enterprises, Sana again pretended to look over the contents of a folder, praying that Wendy would not acknowledge her assistant's slip-up. But Wendy did.

"Why exactly did you have a _stapler_ out?" Wendy's voice remained level, but her frustration was clear. "What on Earth did you need it for?"

Sana deliberated on possible plausible answers, one that wouldn't reveal herself as the unprofessional spaz she was, but none come to her at the moment. "To... wake him up?"

Wendy's jaw dropped slightly. Oh yes, this would be Sana's last day as Wendy Osburn's assistant. Tomorrow she would be back to filing and making copies in the Radiology Department.

To Sana's surprise, Wendy chortled and brought a hand up to her forehead. "Well, that's new!"

Sana's dread quickly dissipated and she released a shaky breath. Her anxiety had left her too wound up to laugh along side with her new boss, but she managed a smile. Wendy was now looking at her with an interesting combination of surprise and something else Sana couldn't identify.

"You didn't have to do that," Wendy said in about the kindest tone Sana had ever heard Wendy use towards herself. "We had to get our point across to the board members, Lucius Fox in particular." She sighed, glancing up for a moment to see which floor they were passing. "For the most part Bruce Wayne is just a figurehead."

Wendy fell silent when the elevator stopped on a floor and two men stepped inside. Sana's expression grew confused. "What do - ?"

Wendy sharply shook her head and looked pointedly at the two individuals in front of them. A few moments later, the elevator reached the lobby and everyone stepped out.

"Everyone who works in this building knows this already," Wendy spoke up once they were a safe distance away from others, "but I'd rather not let _Brucie_ Wayne know of my opinions... for now. To be honest, I'm not even sure why he was there. I wouldn't be surprised if he just wandered by and took a seat because it was one of the few meetings of any significance scheduled at the time."

Sana listened intently, fascinated by the topic, as Wendy went into his history, playboy antics and frivolousness which Sana had only been vaguely familiar with before. Now that she had met the infamous man and been in close proximity for a short period of time, she was shamefully more curious than usual.

For a moment it seemed like Wendy had exhausted herself on the subject and they fell into silence while they waited by the doors for Wendy's driver. Then she suddenly spouted angrily, "And absolutely no subtlety too!"

Sana took a quick look around them to make sure there was no one was close enough to take notice. Clearly, she was remembering their interaction after the meeting was over, Wendy began spouting insults growing louder with each one.

"The cocky, egotistical, _slimy_ - !"

"Wendy!" Sana sharply whispered to caution her from getting any louder. Wendy's excited reaction left Sana with a small smile. "Too loud!" Wendy had done such a perfect job of looking friendly and unaffected by his insinuations earlier that it hadn't occurred to Sana that Wendy might have felt so negatively about the attention.

"Yes," Wendy exhaled and nodded a little too vigorously causing a strand of brown hair to fall across her eyes which she quickly swept aside. "Ah," Wendy said, glancing down at her phone, "he's here. Let's go."

The women stepped outside in the direction of Wendy's town car. Just as they reached it a flurry of excitement came from the next block. They both looked towards the direction to see a handful of exclaiming teenagers staring up and pointing past the skyscrapers.

"The Batman!" one of the children squealed in excitement.

A black dot glided over from the top of Wayne Enterprises to another building and then another. Before either woman could take in what they were seeing, he was blocked from Sana and Wendy's eyesight by the nearby skyscrapers.

The unusual appearance of Batman in the daytime and in the presence of so many people became clear shortly after Sana and Wendy returned to Wayne Biotech. Most offices and labs were empty - to Wendy's irritation - until they passed by the main conference room. Over thirty individuals were crammed into the room with their eyes glued to a television that was generally used for video conference calls.

Sana asked a lab technician she was acquainted with. "What's going on?"

"There's been a breakout at Arkham." The young man's eyes never left the screen.

Sana began to do the same, but the news revealed nothing other than the wreckage and ruins a significant portion the asylum had been left in. A sense of dread fell on her and Sana was sure anyone that had been in Gotham on Fear Night or when the Joker had held the whole city hostage was feeling the same too.

"Do they know if - "

He seemed to know her question before she finished it. "No. No news on him. The whole place is in complete chaos. They don't know who's dead, alive or... gone."

As it became clear that all news channels were recycling the same meager scraps of knowledge over and over again, the room began to empty. Sana wouldn't have been surprised if some people left work altogether today for their family and homes.

She returned her office which was adjacent to Wendy's. She had no family in Gotham to worry for or to worry about her, however, she did have a handful of friends that were as good as family. She nudged her phone thoughtfully, but decided to leave it alone for the time being.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** Thank you to **Spanish Angel** and those of you who added this story to your alert list. Knowing that there were a couple of people who were interested in seeing more out of this story gave me the confidence to post the next chapter. However, _please leave a review._ I'm pretty desperate to hear your thoughts on my writing and my OC! ;)

Okay, I originally had something else for Chapter Deux, but when it was almost done, I realized I had three different points of view and none of them happened to be Bruce's or Sana's. So I scrapped it and found that it hadn't added or taken anything to or from the story except some boring exposition.

_**sensitive bore, markedly more: chapter two**_  
_**batman begins/dark knight,** batman, etc., etc., 2,249_

* * *

Normally, Sana was in awe of Wendy Osburn. She had coveted the older woman's confidence and style since they met. It had always seemed to Sana that there were those who could lead and make things happen and then there was herself. Sana was born to follow or help those who made things happen. However, at this particular moment, Sana would have loved nothing more than to have thrown Wendy out of her office window on the 24th floor because it was eleven o'clock and Sana was rushing down to double-check some numbers from Wayne Chemicals before she could finally call it a night.

Perhaps it was because Wendy was new to Gotham and didn't realize the impact the news of the breakout would have on resident Gothamites, but she had insisted everyone to get back to work. Also, considering the business at the meeting earlier today, Sana had been tasked with more than she normally would. Although a part of her complained frequently about her job, another part of her enjoyed it. The work itself wasn't glamorous or challenging being one of three assistants to a CEO, but it gave her something to do with her days. Some of Sana's tasks could be mind-numbingly boring, but that it gave her plenty of time to daydream. Other tasks, well, they kept her at work until midnight.

Still, this was not the life Sana had imagined for herself ten years ago. She had wanted something more than to be trenched within mediocrity and administrative work. Whether this was actually true to her life or not, she had learned to remind herself that this life was treating her better than the one she had been living years before. And how conceited was she! A small but significant part of Sana knew that some days she could barely hold herself together. A promotion or anything requiring more responsibility from her would likely set her life tumbling down rather than helping her rise.

Sana slowed to a halt as she reached the main office of Wayne Chemicals. Since Wayne Chemicals and Wayne Biotech often worked closely together, some divisions of the Chemical branch worked from Biotech and that where Sana had to go directly to find the data she needed. She released a tired sigh as she unlocked the door. This floor was half offices and half labs. All she had to do before leaving for the night would be to send over copies of this year's and last year's inventories to herself before she could declare her tasks completed.

Thankfully a few of the lights had been left on so she didn't have to go stumble around to find a switch. As she waited for the computer to boot up, she mindlessly spun herself around on the cushioned chair and began to ponder the benefits of sleeping on the couch in her shared office rather than bothering to make her way back home for the night. Just as she was about to 'rest her eyes,' Sana jerked to a stop when she heard a series of shuffles and squeaks that did not sound like any escaped lab rats she had ever shrunk away from.

She pulled out a small can of pepper spray from her purse that she carried everywhere because of the healthy amount of paranoia she had inherited from her parents. Now with pepper spray in hand, she rose as quietly as she could to the door of the office. Peaking through the small crack of the door, she saw two men striding down the hall. With guns.

Sana gasped and jumped back. Her pepper spray would be useless. Once a more logical part of her brain took hold of her she began to look around the room frantically for a place to hide. She threw open the doors to a wooden case in the back of the room and found a handful of coats and blazers. It might be large enough to fit her. She looked back at the room. Seeing no other option, she jumped inside, closed the doors and settled uncomfortably to the bottom.

The steps were growing closer and now there were whoops, laughter, and _giggling_.

As a dim suspicion grew, she felt the terror spreading through her body like a paralyzing anesthetic. _No, fear is death,_ she told herself. _Fear will get you killed._ Still, she trembled as she reached into her pocket for her phone. If she could be quiet enough, she might be able to send off a text message to someone and get herself out of this.

Sana's pocket was empty. Her phone was in her purse. The purse that she had dropped under the desk after getting out the pepper spray.

_She was dead. Dead, dead, dead..._

No, if she was lucky the men would pass by this office. There were plenty of offices and labs on this floor. They could be going into any one of them. The sound of the office door slamming into the wall reminded Sana that luck had rarely played the part she desired for it in her life. She clamped both hands onto her mouth to keep a gasp or sob from betraying her.

Sana could see nothing at this point. Hearing a number of voices, she decided there were four or five men in the room. And there was one voice she was very sure belonged to a man who only this morning was an inmate - no, a patient - at Arkham. Some of the men seemed to be playing a game, Sana decided because of the laughter and disturbing cackles. A sharp thud as something hit the wall. Yelps of surprise and fear. Shoving, wrestling, _more giggling_.

Cutting through it all was a sharp, smooth voice. "I will need some quiet if you want me to find what we need."

The playfulness didn't end. A rough voice commanded, "All right boys, knock it off."

If there was any doubt that she wasn't in mortal danger or one of the men in the room wasn't the Joker, it was gone now. Everyone knew that voice.

The other voices dimmed, but didn't quite stop. _"I said quiet!"_ the Joker roared. There was another thud that was followed by a surprised cry.

_Don't breathe, don't talk, don't think. They'll get what they're looking for and then they'll leave._

The next few minutes passed with relative quietness. Sana heard nothing other than her own muffled breathing and a clacking from the keyboard, but this sudden stop in their excitement did little to quell her terror. So she began counting sheep as high as she could in Urdu. That didn't take very long since she had learned to count only up to twenty-five in the language. So she resorted to counting backwards and then by twos, threes, fours -

Until things started to happen.

Just as Sana was thinking about how if it was incorrectly pronounced, the Urdu word for 'fourteen' sounded a lot like a curse word in the same language she'd recently learned after watching _Slumdog Millionaire_, the doors to the closet were flung open. Sana came face to face with Dr. Jonathan Crane.

A blink of an eye later, one of the men she had seen earlier with a gun, gripped her arm tightly and yanked her out of the closet. Too stunned to speak, she simply looked around the room. Including Dr. Crane and the Joker, there were six. Both men were still in their orange Arkham garb. The Joker was wearing his signature make-up which Sana thought looked freshly applied. Of the other four men, three carried guns and the fourth had settled deeper into the room. He held an unhappy, dark look and was pressing a hand up against his shoulder. Blood had darkened his shirt and hand.

"Good ear, Johnny," the Joker clapped a hand onto Crane's shoulder. Crane attempted to shrug him off, but the Joker pretended he didn't notice it and his hand remained in place. "She was quieter 'an a mouse in there." He grinned at her with something look that might have been mock curiosity. Sana shuddered under this newfound attention. She turned her eyes away from the Joker and scanned the room hoping to find a sympathetic face.

"You might have heard her too, if you hadn't been _playing_." Crane cast a disdainful look at the side of the Joker's head. "She was sloppy. The computer was left on and she hadn't taken this with her." He held up her black purse.

Sana tugged her arm experimentally from the thug's hold, but she was rewarded with a painfully tight squeeze.

"Wasn't playing." Before tonight, Sana wouldn't have thought it possible, but she was almost sure the Joker was pouting. "Doc, this is art!"

The Joker held up a cut-up white paper. At a closer look, Sana realized she was seeing. The Joker had folded up a large piece of paper multiple times, cut a figure into it and had unfolded it to display a number of the rough outline of Batman's form linked by its sides.

"Art!" He held it up to her face. Sana nodded dumbly.

_She was dead. Dead, dead, dead..._

"What was that?" He turned an ear to her head. "I didn't quiet hear you, Little Mouse." An interested flick of his head told her he expected her to reply with words. Sana didn't think she was capable of making an audible sound at this point. "Well?"

"I've seen better."

Everyone's eyes swung towards to a dark figure at the door. Moments later the man gripping her hand fell unconscious to the floor and she was shoved back into a corner of the room landing inelegantly on her bottom. As Batman set towards the other thugs, Crane took his momentary distraction to flee the room.

The Joker, on the other hand, was delighted. He cackled madly, hopping around three of his remaining men and Batman.

Just as Sana had risen to her feet, the fourth man, the wounded one, spotted her shrinking form and leapt in her direction. Without thinking, Sana swung her fist into the man's temple. He staggered back a step or two and then looked up at Sana with a furious look that terrified her. He pounced on her again and they both fell to the ground, Sana under him. She cried out in pain on impact. He throttled her neck with one had as the other dug painfully into her arm while she kicked and struggled.

She had slipped the pepper spray under her sleeve earlier, but there was no room to pull it out. And using it at such close range might hurt her more than it would hurt him. However, she reconsidered the option when the room began to lose its definition as she struggled to breathe. To her surprise, the man suddenly flopped to his side. Apparently, she had kneed him between his legs. Lucky her.

He growled in a mixture of pain and anger. When he saw her attempting to scramble away, he jumped on her once again and punched her jaw, cursing and promising her death.

The searing pain forced her to stop struggling for a brief moment until she saw him raising a fist to strike her again. Sana lost all ability to make a coherent thought. Her nails dug into the wound on his shoulder and scratched against his face furiously forcing him move his head away from her by shifting slightly to the left. Sana saw her opportunity and latched her teeth onto his wounded shoulder.

Sometime during this, the canister had escaped her sleeve. She hit him over the head with it repeatedly until, to her relief and revulsion, he slackened against her.

No, she did not want this thing touching her.

Frantically, she shoved him off of her with her arms and legs as he held his head in his hands. Once he was completely off of her, she held out the canister, covered her eyes with the inside of her elbow, and sprayed it in the man's direction. _For good measure._ Letting out a terrible scream, the man finally lost control of himself.

His hands scrambled fitfully to a gun at his side. Without thinking Sana jumped forward and stomped on one of his hands then kicked away the weapon.

"I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"

He did little more than fold into himself and jerk violently around on the floor in pain.

Stunned at the effects of her violence, Sana stared at the writhing form while she sobbed and hyperventilated. She was shaken out of her reverie by the Joker whooping. Quickly, she looked up to see the Batman _breaking_ the remaining thug's arm. During her own struggle, Batman had thrown the Joker against the wall where he lay, wheezing and laughing.

The disturbing laughter had been a constant presence throughout this whole fight.

_Does he ever stop?_

"Miss?" Batman set his masked expression on her and she flinched, taking a step backward. Her eyes wandered around the office that had in the span of a few minutes been filled with five bodies, broken and bloody, unconscious or undulating in pain. Sana was vaguely aware that Batman was talking to her, but she had no idea what he was saying.

It was only when he took a step in her direction she reacted. "Thank you," she said quietly, "but please..." Sana raised the canister in Batman's direction. "Don't. Move."


	3. Chapter 3

**Note:** This is who I picture in my head when I write Sana Khairi: (h t t p : / / i55 . tinypic . com / o6jy48 . jpg) - remove all the spaces. The actress is Archie Panjabi. She can currently be seen as Kalinda Sharma on _The Good Wife_. A very awesome show that everyone should watch. :)

_**sensitive bore, markedly more: chapter three**_  
_**batman begins/dark knight,** batman, sana, 2,475_

* * *

Rumors of security breaches at Arkham had been taken more seriously since the Joker had become a resident. Guards were required more intensive training. Background checks and application requirements became more stringent. Bruce Wayne, himself, had donated a significant amount of money and resources to improve security following the murders of his friends.

Despite these measures, neither Batman nor Commissioner James Gordon could ever allow their minds to remain at ease. The first time they had held the Joker in their grasps, he had escaped custody mere hours later. The man - _the monster_ - could not be contained, could not be caged. Gordon had the distinct impression that the Joker had only remained in Arkham as long as he had because he wanted to be there.

If that were true, both men could only imagine one reason behind it. "He's _planning._" The look on Gordon's face had spoken shades of fear and revulsion when he had said that. Batman had silently agreed. They made their own various plans and contingencies to prevent the Joker from escaping. Batman had a few ideas for the Joker as well which Batman had decidedly kept from Gordon in case the Commissioner happened to share his trust once again with more unworthy colleagues.

In the end it had all been for naught. The southern corner of Arkham now laid in rubble and Batman suffered what he suspected were two fractured ribs. Including the escaped patients and the injuries and violence they would soon inflict, there must have been people left in that part of the hospital before the explosion had gone off. The only thing that had kept him from spiraling into a deep melancholy while he attempted to get a track of the Joker's location was to list the many ways Batman could inflict pain on the Joker short of killing him. Bruce didn't like the idea at first but hated the Joker enough not to disagree with any of it.

However, once Batman discovered that the Joker's trail was leading him to Wayne Chemicals, Bruce began to agree with some of Batman's dark imaginings. The monster was in _Bruce's_ domain. It was his company. His _father's_ company. The clown was intending on sullying one of the few things in Bruce's life he had to lie about the least.

Batman had been so focused on taking out the Joker that he had been taken surprise when he found out Crane's involvement, but after the fact Batman could see the likelihood of the Joker seeking out Crane to work with him (for him?) as he'd done with other criminals before. The woman _certainly_ hadn't been expected. He was certain she was the woman from a meeting Bruce had mostly slept through earlier that day. If there was a connection between her and the Joker and Scarecrow, he couldn't begin to see it. By the time the Joker and three of his thugs were on the ground he found that the woman finishing her own battle. Batman realized his injuries from earlier must have affected him more than he had realized if he hadn't been able to take the fourth one out earlier.

Batman finally turned to acknowledge her and was greeted by the pepper spray. "That's a thank you?" He rasped while staring down the short woman.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! This is too good, Batsy. What did I tell ya? Give 'em enough time and they'll all see us as _freaks_ to - " Batman slammed the Joker's head against the wall leaving him with a satisfying silence.

Sana jumped at the sudden, violent action and took in a sharp gasp of breath. _This_ brutal man was whom Gotham had once set it hopes upon?

"I'm not going to hurt you." If he expected a response from her, he certainly didn't get it. What could she say to that? To be honest, she didn't even know what she was doing at the moment. "What are you doing here?"

"I _work_ here!" Sana spat out in anger, forgetting the fact that her head was throbbing, she could taste blood on her tongue and she should be very scared at the moment rather than blathering hysterically. "I work here! And you all come in with guns! And make-up! And paper dolls! And capes!"

_I should have tried harder with Mom and Dad. I could have been a better sister. Aziz deserved so much better from me. I should never have quit the cello, been more outgoing, made more friends, traveled, finished college. Should've-should've prayed more..._

She quickly put a stop to her hysteria by biting the inside of her cheek and taking in two large gulps of air. _Okay. Are we good? Yep. We're good._

Batman stared at her for a long moment while Sana struggled with her emotions. She was afraid, but worn and tired. It would be easy to distract her and remove the canister from her hand. So Batman began to ask her questions, which were somewhat repetitive and circulatory, about her presence here and what she had seen. She stammered and fumbled through her responses, but her answers remained consistent.

"I wasn't _helping_ them, if that's what you're getting at!"

Sana's arm was beginning to slacken, but she didn't want to switch the spray to the other hand in front of him. Would he come at her? Attack her like he had some of the other men here? But he had tried to help her in the beginning, hadn't he? He had disarmed the man that had been holding her earlier and pushed her to the corner of the room.

"It's possible." He took a small step in her direction. "You were coerced," he suggested. "They made you come here."

"No! I heard them coming down the hallway and hid in that closet until they found me!" The anger had quickly receded when she thought of what he would do to her if he decided she had been aiding his enemies. "My purse!" She looked in the direction Crane had been before he had fled the room. To her relief he had thrown it on the ground. "He - the doctor - found my purse and figured out I was here."

Seeming to believe her, he nodded and turned away from her towards the direction of the computer. Sana felt silly rigidly holding up the weaponed arm towards a man on the other side of the room, so she lowered it for the time being but didn't release the canister.

Batman studied the screen as he worked something out on the keyboard. Sana took this free moment to make her escape from this nightmarish room. She wasn't aligned with the men in this room or with the Gotham police. In other words, she was not one of the main players in the game of dominance over Gotham. No, what would Batman care if she skipped out the room right now.

Sana began shuffling to her right to collect her purse before leaving. Batman did not need to know her name or where she lived, and it was a small blessing that neither Dr. Crane nor the Joker had looked through her belongings before Batman had arrived.

"Wait," he said to her sharply and she froze. "They - " he paused, then began again, "I assume you have the passphrase."

"What are you looking for?"

"I need to know what they came here for."

"Oh, well..."

"Yes?"

"Well, we're not supposed to share it with non-employees." Sana cringed the second she had finished her sentence. It was an automatic and very stupid response, but, later, when she would go over the events of evening in her mind she could have sworn that Batman's lips had turned upwards for a fraction of a second.

"Then you enter it." He motioned towards the computer.

Help a cop-killer with his vendetta against a mass murderer and a mad scientist? Sure, why not.

Sana nodded. "Only... if you... stand over there." She pointed to what seemed to her a safe distance away from the desk. To her surprise, he agreed. As they circled around the mahogany desk, she made sure he was directly across from her during the move. However, it left her closer to the Joker and one of his thugs than she would have liked.

"Do you have an idea what it might have been?" She asked once she was seated. With some reluctance she let go of the canister and set it next to the keyboard. He could probably kill her with his pinky toe if he so willed, with or without the spray, but better to keep it close by than be without it.

"I'm familiar with the system." It occurred to her that it wouldn't hurt to play nice either in case he found her expendable. That would be the smart thing to do, right? "I might be able to find it faster than you." She peered up to his stony expression, waiting for a word.

"They managed to order something through Wayne Chemicals."

_That helps some... Chemicals has been breached. Wendy and the IT department need to know. The supply department too..._ Sana switched over to the intake/outtake database while suppressing the urge to shudder at the low timbre of his voice. She had to get him to sympathize with her. Isn't that what people did on television when they found themselves in situations such as these?

_Oh, she was dead. Dead, dead, dead..._

"You know, this is my second time seeing you today," Sana began conversationally.

From the way he moved she had learned that his suit restricted him from turning his head. In lieu of that option, he turned his whole self sharply away from looking over the clown gang on the floor and towards her causing her to shrink back deeper into the chair.

"I - I wasn't - I saw you at Wayne Enterprises." The man did not move an inch, but something about his gaze darkened. "On top of it actually." Sana's speech began to pick up rapidly in speed. "But then you flew off of it - I mean, glided or whatever it is you do. _I mean no one can fly!_ You jumped off of Wayne Enterprises onto another building nearby."

Without taking a breath, she decided to stop that line of conversation and go back to their first topic of the evening. "And is there anything else you can tell me? We receive thousands of items in our shipments each month."

After a moment of hesitation - likely thinking about what a pathetic hostage he'd stumbled upon, Sana surmised - Batman handed her a small piece of paper across the desk. Where he had pulled it out from she couldn't tell. Even in the light he looked like a column of dark mass. She took it from his hand careful to only touch the paper.

"It may have been one or more of these."

Sana nodded refusing to look anywhere near his eyes. She looked down a long list of words that looked like a long jumble of letters. But very science-y and chemical-y looking. She worked at a Biotech company, but had little expertise in the area itself. She compared the chemicals and instruments received at the company with the ones he had listed.

"We've received shipments of most of these..." Her eyes fell over a name on the computer that gave her pause.

"Get up."

"Wait a minute..." Sana trailed off. She was now truly engaged just as much for her curiosity as his. The silence went on for a minute or two. When he attempted to question her, she cut him off with an annoyed, "Hold on."

A few minutes passed in relative silence, broken briefly by one of the gang members gaining consciousness. Sana jumped out of her chair, but the situation was quickly taken care of by Batman knocking him back out. Sana cringed at the fierce move and sat back down.

"Needs to learn about pressure points like Xena," she muttered inanely.

"What?"

Sana muttered curses to herself now with a heightened anxiety.

"What?" he repeated. And was it her imagination or had his voice turned into more of a growl?

"Fourteen."

Her thoughtless reaction surprised her. She glanced up to see if he was annoyed (and/or wished to throw her out a window), but he remained as unreadable as ever. The man gave her a blank stare that she found unable to break for a long stretch of a minute until she quietly ventured, "I, uh, I found something."

Batman was by her side before she realized it. He grabbed the spray and kept it out of her reach. Sana froze.

_How long will it take before anyone knows I'm missing?_

"What is it?" His voice was uncomfortably close to her ear.

Had she not been terrified as she was - had it been someone other than _him_ - she would have reacted visibly, but the uncertainty of the situation kept her from responding immediately in any way until something kicked in her brain.

"This man," Sana said as she raised a shaking hand to the screen. He was too close. Everyone in this room was far too close to her. "Michael Pearson, he's listed as ordering seven of the items you have on your list. It says he put in the order two weeks ago, but that's not possible... I went to his funeral last month." Sana dared to meet his eyes. "To do this someone would have had to physically come in to Wayne Chemicals and enter Mr. Pearson's name and password."

"This couldn't have been done from a remote location?" Again, Sana's stomach made nervous flips in her belly as he leaned in closer to look at the screen.

"No, well, maybe. I don't, um, I don't know. I don't know much about the programming," Sana admitted, "but I know the database used by Wayne Chemicals was designed to be a closed-off system."

Batman responded with nod and said, "You should leave." He returned the canister to the desk and moved away from her. Sana felt a large amount of the tension leaving her immediately, but she was left with an inexplicable unease.

_That's it?_

She watched him pull out a string of rope from some mysterious place on his person and proceed to tying up the gang members until he noticed that she had not moved from the desk. "Is there something else?"

"No, I - "

A sharp, piercing pain stopped her world.

Sana choked on a breath. Her body couldn't decide whether to inhale or exhale. A cry lay tangled in her throat.

_What is this?_

A monster rose to her side, his laughter tearing apart her world. She moved her eyes towards the source of the pain and sobbed at the sight. There it was. A knife pinning her hand to the mahogany desk.


End file.
